


Jailbird

by Sectumsempra



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Prison, and Seb is instantly drawn to him and vice versa, it counts right, not really slash but, they have chemistry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:32:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4173039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sectumsempra/pseuds/Sectumsempra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sebastian is serving a prison sentence outside of London when a man comes to visit him and claims he can have him out eight months early if only he accepts a job offer.</i><br/><br/>Jim pops another piece of fudge into his mouth. He swallows, sips his tea, then says, very casually, as if the idea just struck him; ”How would you like a new job, Sebastian?” Sebastian leans back, raises his brows.<br/>”Do I look like I'm available for employment?”<br/>”Well. Could use a shave and a haircut, I suppose.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jailbird

”Prisoner six two seven five, Moran, step out of the cell please.”

Sebastian opens his eyes, puts the John Silver he's been sniffing – hoping for some kind of placebo effect that doesn't kick in – behind his ear, and stands up. Stretches.

His cellmate, Marcel, throws him a sideways glance from where he's lying on the top bunk, flipping through a skin-mag hidden inside an issue of Donald Duck.

”You done something naughty, Seb?” he asks. Sebastian smirks wryly, the image of him and Marcel jerking each other off in the shadows of their cell the night before comes to mind. ”... side the obvious,” Marcel adds.

”All a question of definitions,” he says.

”Doubt they agree the rules are open for interpretation...” Marcel says offhandedly, distant as he speaks; most of his focus lost in the magazine that isn't Donald Duck. ”Can I eat your candy bars if they throw you in solitary?”

”You are a dead man if you touch them, querido,” says Sebastian, and Marcel chuckles dark and low.

A clicking sound lets him know the cell door is unlocked, and he steps out. Williams, the guard that called his number, closes and locks it behind him.

”Hands.” Sebastian places his hands on his back and turns around to get cuffed.

”I thought I'd stayed out of trouble,” Sebastian says sweetly as Williams grips his arm and tugs at him to follow.

”No you didn't,” says the guard, ”but this isn't about that. You got a visitor, and it ain't the lil sis.”

”It isn't visiting hours,” Sebastian observes. His _lil sis_ hasn't visited in a very long time anyway, so he doesn't expect her to, now. Considering he's doing time outside of London and her residing in northern Scotland, he doesn't really hold it against her. He doubts she feels like spending much of what little income she has on visiting him, and he doesn't hold that against her either. He was never a great host.

”So you know how to read a watch, congratulations.” They pass through two heavy doors and walks the corridor down to the visiting sections. ”No, to be completely fucking honest, I don't know how this guy got in. Maybe he's friendly with the Warden.”

Williams unlocks the last door and Sebastian enters the spacious, white room; a number of stainless steel tables with fixed benches, two fridge-sized vending machines with sweets and sodas, a third smaller one with coffee and tea. Nothing else, even the windows are naked. The interior designer hadn't exactly had warm and welcoming in mind for the place.

At one of the tables in the middle sits a man who looks like a lawyer. He's got dark hair, combed back and glossy with wax; is all suited up, and it looks fancy, tailored, his outfit. He's turned away, towards the windows; out there the sky is pale grey and cold. White September light.

Sebastian approaches.

”I'm guessing you're here for me,” he says. The room is, after all, deserted save for the two of them. ”I'd shake your hand, but...”

Dark brown eyes meets his. The guy, quite young, rather short and slim, tilts his head to the side. ”I thought you got to be unrestrained during visiting hours...” A mild Irish accent.

”It isn't visiting hours,” Sebastian says, again.

”Oh, right, my mistake...”

”So who did you have sleep with to get in? Hoping for your sake it wasn't the Warden.”

The man's smirk is wry. Without taking his eyes off of Sebastian, he waves for Williams, who is watching them through the window in the door, to come over. ”Would you be a sweetheart and allow him... use of his hands?” he asks the guard and makes the last bit sound absolutely dirty. ”I'd love to buy him a cuppa.” Nods towards the vending machines. ”You'll behave, won't you, Sebastian?”

He chuckles, because what the _fuck_ , this guy – something in his eyes as he looks at Sebastian, while Williams for some reason chooses to comply and removes the cuffs; he feels stripped down and objectified and measured up all at once.

”Thank you, you're a darling.” Sebastian doesn't have time to catch the guard's expression at that, too bad, then they're alone again and the guest, whose name he still doesn't know, is up by the machines. ”What would you like? And please, do sit down.”

Sebastian does. The fixed benches are too close to the tables for his height, really, and it takes some effort to find a comfortable position for his legs. He scratches the itching skin around his wrists. ”I'm not picky.”

”Tea and fudge it is, then. Scotts like fudge, don't they?”

He gets the feeling his guest knew he was scottish long before hearing him speak.

”Any plans on introducing yourself?” he asks. The man comes back with two sophisticated plastic cups of Earl Grey and a package of bit-sized vanilla fudge.

”Silly me. Naturally. I'm Jim.” He tears the package open. ”Moriarty.”

_Jim. James, then. Jimmy_. No, Jim was definitely the fit. Sebastian takes the piece of fudge offered to him.

Watching it from up close now, he notes that the suit does indeed look expensive as fuck. And Jim – Jim has a dark glint to his eyes, and Sebastian has known dangerous men all his life, has developed a sixth sense about them (over these last two years especially); Jim makes all his alarms go off.

”You wormed yourself in between visiting hours just to buy me tea and candy, _Jim_?” he asks. Adds; ”Or are you the 'mister Moriarty' type?”

Jim grins, again that smile tilted to one side as though it's fallen over, a secretive kind of amusement. Apparently the situation is funny in a way that's lost on Sebastian.

”Use whatever variation of my name you like, my dear.” Jim pops another piece of fudge into his mouth. He swallows, sips his tea, then says, very casually, as if the idea just struck him; ”How would you like a new job, Sebastian?”

Sebastian leans back, raises his brows. ”Do I look like I'm available for employment?”

”Well. Could use a shave and a haircut, I suppose.”

He hasn't shaved in three days and hasn't cut his hair for months, now keeps it collected in a short ponytail. He chuckles. ”Are you fucking serious?”

”I could have you out by the end of the week if you say yes,” says Jim.

”Hybris is a deadly sin, I hear,” says Sebastian. ”And say yes to what, exactly?”

”The _job_ ,” Jim says, his tone and facial expression letting Sebastian know his question is found utterly stupid.

”I don't know who the fuck you are, but you come here and tell me if I say yes to a job – the details around which I know shit – you'll have me out eight months before my time.”

”Mmhm.”

”What are you, FBI? Want me to go white collar?”

Jim laughs. ”Oh Sebastian, don't insult me.”

”Well go on, we haven't got all day. Williams is gonna want to drag me back to my cell any minute.” Sebastian picks the cigarette from behind his ear, spins it between his fingers while listening. Jim's gaze falls to his hands, watches them as he says;

”If I'm correctly informed, and to be fair, I usually am, you have a wide set of skills. I'm sure I could make use of them all... in good time.” 

”You gotta let me know what skills it is you think I possess, Jimmy-boy.” After all, thus far, Mr Suit hasn't said anything that isn't in the offical records.

He doesn't expect Jim to roll his eyes. ”Well _gee_ , in job interviews you're supposed to sell _yourself_.” He clicks his tongue reproachfully, chews his fudge, looks at Sebastian, then: ” _Fine -_ ” and goes on, in a strangely bored tone, mocking, it doesn't quite fit what he's saying: ”Sniping... undercover work... extortion... spying... hand-to-hand combat... survival skills like a cockroach, haven't you, Sebastian?” He's not surprised, per se, that Jim knows these things – his hunch about the guy hasn't been that he is fake – but it gives a sudden realness to the situation that distracts him, Jim knowing about his particular skill set to a T makes the job offer seem real, and he's distracted enough not to be ready when Jim takes hold of his left hand and turns it palm up. He looks down. Jim follows the long, vertical scar that runs from his wrist up towards his elbow with his right index finger. That happened when he was tortured, once, for answers he didn't have. ”Tell me, Mr Moran, how many times have you nearly died?”

”I've lost count.” There's a silence. It's charged, he's not sure by what.

”I love that in a man.” Jim withdraws his hand, so does Sebastian. ”As to what the job would require of you... nothing you haven't done before, I'm sure. I'll expect you to follow orders and be utterly willing to... play a dirty little game. I think you're _perfect_ for the position.”

He doesn't need the details, he's got a clear enough idea of what kind of man Jim is and what kind of tasks he needs done for him. Sebastian has clearly been thoroughly researched, and all the places where the inofficial information about him is to be found is dark and dirty and full of Bad People, if Jim has found his way around and gotten the right people to spill about him...

”Do you wish for me to elaborate?”

”Nah, I'm good,” Sebastian says. ”But I bet there's a catch in there somewhere.”

”The job occasionally gets quite bloody ...” Jim says, but more like an afterthought than an actual answer, his eyes on what little tea is left in his cup. Sebastian raises a brow.

”With all due respect, Mr Moriarty, stop bullshitting me. We both know _that's_ not going to be a problem. What's the actual -”

Jim's gaze flicks up, he speaks before Sebastian finishes his sentence. ”I'd _own_ you.” A beat. ”How's that for a catch?”

The way Jim says it, the way he looks at Sebastian when he does, makes it sound very literal. Literal and definite the way things are in the world he knows, where most rules are unwritten and where you pay with blood if you break them.

”You'd own me. What, like some kind of pet?”

”Your words, not mine,” says Jim slyly and smirks again.

”And what, I'd work for free as a sign of gratitude for getting me out early?”

”Oh no, I'd pay. A boy gotta eat.”

Sebastian puts the cigarette back behind his ear and crosses his arms over his chest. Jim helps himself to the last piece of fudge, watches him with something alike curiosity.

”I don't know, Jim. To me it sounds like it'd make more sense to just wait out my last eight months and then get out and not be someone's pet.”

The corner of Jim's mouth pulls up, but not in a half smile this time, rather like _oh well._

”I'd love it if you just said yes, but if you don't ... Then I'm gonna have to stop playing nice and make you.”

”Make me.” Sebastian repeats it flatly, more an echo than a question.

”Afraid so...”

He chuckles. ”I'm curious as to how you'd go about doing that.”

”Well... you're in for petty theft. Quite ironic, one might say, considering... all the things you've done. You are one twisted boy, Sebastian...” So Jim knows he's killed people, then. How inconvenient. Sebastian finds himself horribly curious as to who has ratted him out and what methods was used to make them. ”I could bring some of those things into the light and make sure you're not getting out this decade. Wouldn't be that much fun, now would it?”

”I hope you're not making empty threats. I hate that in a guy.”

”Oh let's see, so much to pick and choose from...” Jim taps his fingers against the table, becomes distant for a moment. Then: ”Thomas Hart. February two years ago. Not long before you got locked up, ordered job... His body was found by a little girl out walking her puppy. Never got solved, that murder.”

_Fuck me,_ thinks Sebastian, and perhaps Jim reads his mind because his smirk turns suggestive and absolutely bloody sinister.

”Fair enough,” Sebastian says.

”Glad we have an understanding.” There's a silence while Sebastian sips at his tea and Jim picks at the fudge package. Then: ”Tell me, Sebastian, how are you finding prison?”

The question is unexpected. He has to consider it for a moment. ”Restful,” he says then.

”Restful.” Jim says this and chuckles. It's not a question, not a request for him to go on. He does anyway.

”I mean boring, sure, but restful.” He takes a sip from his cup. ”Prison is like a tiny society, right? We have the police, which would be the guards, obviously. We have the bad guys, the good guys. The ones in for things like... tax fraud, shit like that, they are surprisingly keen to follow the rules, not make unfriendly with anyone. And the guys who... guys who are in for shit like hitting their women, you know, they're not used to fighting someone their own size and they know they're on the bottom of the ranks; they too keep to themselves. And... if you're not completely dull, you figure out what's what and who's who in two or three days at the most. Then it's....” He leans back. ”...when you know how to navigate between all the dirtbags, and you have someone else telling you what to do and when to do it, have a schedule to follow... it's fucking boring but it's restful. You don't have to think. Don't have to take responsibility. Just do what you're told and you're fine, right? Like being a bloody kid again.”

”So that's who you are in here? The good boy who keeps out of trouble? Hm.” Jim looks thoughtful for a moment. ”I thought you might have ganged up, you know, just for the fun of it...”

”Well, the Aryans wanted me,” he says. ”Tried really hard to recruit me.”

”Can imagine, a pretty blue-eyed blond like yourself...”

”But I couldn't care less about their bullshit, so I... declined.” He shrugs. ”The whole gang business is too much work.”

Jim looks pleased, for some reason.

”Now, about the job...” he begins. ”What kind of time frame are we talking about?” He thinks he knows the answer. ”Couple of months, nine-to-five?”

Jim laughs. ”That would be a half-arsed kind of ownership, wouldn't it? Nah. You'd be available to me twenty four-seven, you don't take other jobs unless I let someone borrow you, and if I tell you to travel to the other side of the planet then you don't ask why, you just ... go.”

He doesn't say for how long. He doesn't have to. Sebastian notes the word _borrow._ For a moment ponders the idea of being someone's possession. It's sickening and claustrophobic, yet he cannot help but consider what it would mean in the way of freedom from responsibility. Just going where one is pointed – would be a lot like war, that way. War had suited him. Being a toy soldier in a bigger scheme. He imagines having Jim as his sergeant – _master_ – being a _good boy_ and returning after every job well done.

Yet, he would love to explode, right about now, grab this complacent little fuck by the collar and use his body to make a dent in the wall, ask him _who the fuck_ he thinks he is, then accept what he doubts was ever really an offer.

It's just – not so much that he doesn't want to spend a week in solitary confinement (Marcel would eat his candybars if nothing else, the guy has some kind of deathwish) as the fact that he's somewhat sure that if he as much as touches Jim, he'll either spend the rest of his life in prison – Jim will make it so – or he won't survive the week because Jim... will make it so.

He wants to ask who the fuck Jim thinks he is, walking into his life making demands, and at the same time he's sickly curious, wants an actual answer.

”So let me get this straight...” he says. ”You... find me. Somehow. Dig up my resumé and decide I'm your guy, and you come here... just to let me know.”

”You are one clever boy, my dear. But then of course, that's part of the reason I chose you.”

Sebastian laughs. Laughs because _I chose you_ , as though Jim has flipped through a catalogue of criminal men and picked him and now, come here to claim what is his.

He's amused and pissed off and Jim, it seems, is fearless.

The feeling resembles something like a high.

”Just... one thing,” Sebastian says. ”You could have the decency to fear I'll walk out of here at the end of the week and get rid of you first thing. If you know me as well as you think you do, you know I'm perfectly capable.” Unless, he thinks, Jim surrounds himself with bodyguards – he looked the type – in which case it'd take him a little longer to get it done. But he'd get it done, no doubt.

”Naturally;” says Jim. ”But you won't want to, my dear.”

”If I do, someone'll come after me?”

”Oh no. That'd be petty, wouldn't it?” Jim grimaces as if the mere idea is off-putting. ”No, Sebastian, you won't want to because you'll be enjoying yourself too much.”

”Bloody hell.” Sebastian chuckles again, shakes his head. ”You're one self-satisfied fuck, aren't you?”

”Been accused of it on more than one occasion,” Jim says, ”but never twice by the same person.” He doesn't have to clarify what he means by that. ”So what do you say?”

”What do I say? Are you serious?” He empties his cup, flings it towards the waste bin at the other end of the room, hits. Jim is blank-faced and patient, doesn't confirm whether he's _serious._ ”I'm not exactly being given a choice here, am I?”

”You _could_ say no...” Jim drawls.

”And spend my life in this shit-hole?”

”It _is_ a choice.”

”Oh fuck off.”

There's a hard knock on the window in the door behind him. He turns around.

”Time,” Williams calls.

They stand, Jim straightens his suit. Sebastian is a head taller and it doesn't make the shit of a difference.

”So will I see you at the end of the week?”

”Unless you're bullshitting me, I guess you will.”

Jim extends his hand, Sebastian shakes it. Williams comes into the room and the cold sound of metal against metal makes Sebastian let go and place his hands on his back out of shere habit.

On the way back William asks him ”Now who the hell was that clown?”

”Honestly boss, I haven't a fucking clue.” As Williams unlocks the cuffs back at the cell, he says ”He told me he can have me out at the end of the week.” As he turns around, he meets Williams grinning face.

”That's a good one.” The guard chuckles and shakes his head to himself as he walks away.

”So no candy bars for me?” asks Marcel, who is no longer flipping through his hidden porn mag, meaning he most likely put his alone time to good use.

”You know what, you might still be in luck,” Sebastian tells him. ”We'll see at the end of the week.”


End file.
